Corpus
As of 1989, the corpus of Cretan hieroglyphic inscriptions included two parts: * Seals and sealings, 150 documents with 307 sign-groups, using 832 signs in all. * Other documents on clay, 120 documents with 274 sign-groups, using 723 signs. More documents, such as those from the Petras deposit, have been published since then. A four sided prism was found in 2011 at Vrysinas in western Crete. These inscriptions were mainly excavated at four locations: *"Quartier Mu" at Malia ( Middle Minoan II period = MM II) *Malia palace (MM III) *Signs
Symbol inventories have been compiled by , , and . The glyph inventory in CHIC includes 96 syllabograms representing sounds, ten of which double as logograms, representing words or portions of words. There are also 23 logograms representing four levels of numerals (units, tens, hundreds, thousands), numerical fractions, and two types of punctuation. Many symbols have apparent Linear A counterparts, so that it is tempting to insertChronology
The development of hieroglyphs passed 3 important stages: * Arkhanes script (signs look like pictograms, although their number and frequency rather suggest a syllabic script); this script was only described as a distinct stage in development of the Cretan hieroglyphic in the 1980s. Most of these seals contain a repetitive "Arkhanes formula" of 2-3 signs. * Hieroglyphic A (best represented in archaeological records; similar to Arkhanes, but images of animals are reduced to heads only) * Hieroglyphic B (mostly on clay, characters are essentially simplified, may have served as a prototype for Linear A and possibly the Cypro-Minoan script). Only this latter version of the hieroglyphic includes signs that can possibly match ideograms known from Linear A. The sequence and the geographical spread of Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A, and Linear B, the five overlapping, but distinct, writing systems of Bronze Age Crete and the Greek mainland can be summarized as follows:Fonts
The ''Aegean'' and ''Cretan Hieroglyphs'' fonts support Cretan hieroglyphs.See also
* Eteocretan languageNotes
References
Works cited
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Further reading
* W. C. Brice, ''Notes on the Cretan Hieroglyphic Script: I. The Corpus. II. The Clay Bar from Malia, H20,'' Kadmos 29 (1990) 1-10. * W. C. Brice, ''Cretan Hieroglyphs & Linear A'', Kadmos 29 (1990) 171-2. * W. C. Brice, ''Notes on the Cretan Hieroglyphic Script: III. The Inscriptions from Mallia Quarteir Mu. IV. The Clay Bar from Knossos, P116'', Kadmos 30 (1991) 93-104. * W. C. Brice, ''Notes on the Cretan Hieroglyphic Script'', Kadmos 31 (1992), 21-24. * M. Civitillo, LA SCRITTURA GEROGLIFICA MINOICA SUI SIGILLI. Il messaggio della glittica protopalaziale, Biblioteca di Pasiphae XII, Pisa-Roma 2016. * G. M. Facchetti La questione della scrittura «geroglifica cretese» dopo la recente edizione del corpus dei testi. Pasiphae: Rivista di filologia e antichita egee. 2007. * Silvia Ferrara, "The Making of a Script: Cretan Hieroglyphic and the Quest for Its Origins", Bulletin of ASOR, vol. 386, pp. 1–22, November 2021 * * Jasink, Anna Margherita. "The So-called klasmatograms on Cretan Hieroglyphic Seals" , KADMOS, vol. 44, no. 1-2, 2005, pp. 23-39 * G. A. Owens, ''The Common Origin of Cretan Hieroglyphs and Linear A'', Kadmos 35:2 (1996), 105–110. * G. A. Owens, ''An Introduction to «Cretan Hieroglyphs»: A Study of «Cretan Hieroglyphic» Inscriptions in English Museums (excluding the Ashmolean Museum Oxford)'', Cretan Studies VIII (2002), 179–184. * Perna, Massimo. "A seal in the British Museum with a Cretan Hieroglyphic inscription (CR (?) S (1/1) 07)" Kadmos, vol. 58, no. 1-2, 2019, pp. 49-60 * * * I. Schoep, ''A New Cretan Hieroglyphic Inscription from Malia (MA/V Yb 03)'', Kadmos 34 (1995), 78–80. * J. G. Younger, ''The Cretan Hieroglyphic Script: A Review Article'', Minos 31-32 (1996–1997) 379–400.External links
*